In recent weeks people have criticized President Bush's flashy visit to the USS Lincoln as inappropriate and "the first stop on the 2004 campaign trail". I cannot fathom how someone could misunderstand such a simple thing.
President Bush flew to the USS Lincoln to speak to the nation about the war that it is fighting and to honor the military for its glorious performance in this war. A flashy entrance draws attention to the event and increases the honor given. A flashy entrance means that more people are watching; that more people will see their president give thanks, congratulate, and praise. More people will see pictures of the sailors cheering and victorious.
Human culture has always understood this. This is why everything big in human life is accompanied by something splendid. This is why victories have their marches and funerals their processions. It is why weddings have dancing and independence day has fireworks. Indeed, it is why both priests and judges wear robes. The human instinct is always that if men are to do something great, be it grand or terrible, they should do it looking good.
President Lincoln shocked people with the brevity of his Gettysburg address. So great a battle demanded much honor, and it was assumed that the honor paid to it would be time, in the form of a long speech. People came to recognize that Lincoln paid tribute not with a long speech, but with a great speech. Yet one result of this great speech is we remember that Lincoln gave it. It have been more modest had he given a crappy speech so that history would have forgotten him, but it would not have been better.
President Bush made an explicit show of appearing with the majesty of his office. Arriving in a fighter jet symbolized the power of the commander-in-chief of the United States military. Someone remarked that whatever the politics, it gave us the ability to say to the French, "Our leader can kick your leader's ass". And so it did. Bush showed up in grand style. He looked quite good. But you will miss the meaning of this entirely if you ignore what Bush showed up to do. He came, with as much grandeur (now called "coolness") as he could muster, to praise others.
It is a basic human fact that the more grand the praiser, the more grand is the praise. Just as a drunkard's compliment is not worth that of a sober man, a pathetic president's praise is not worth that of a cool president. If you wish to praise a man highly, you must appear high. If you wish to praise a man greatly, you must appear great. A man cannot give what he has not got, and if he has no dignity he cannot confer it to others.
There is a great mistake in our time to look at actions partway completed and judge them as if they were whole. It is as if we should call doctors vicious because they like to cut people open, ignoring that they also like to sew them up afterwards. President Bush came to the USS Lincoln in great majesty, but it was precisely to give this majesty to those that he visited, and to the country in general. His entrance was cool in order that he would have the authority to say that the Armed Forces are cool, to say that our country is cool.
It is inescapable that if you wish to praise, you must have the authority to do so. It is the great irony of the world that those would would be first must be last and he would be greatest must be the servant of all, but those who would be last must be first, and he who would be the servant of all must be the greatest of all. For if you mean to be a servant to all, you must actually be able to do it.